Thought-provoking post, especially the section about the meaning of traditional food. I'm curious about the relationship between insulin resistance and obesity. If you can keep skinny can you avoid the metabolism FUBAR you're talking about even if your diet is still westernised? 

So, I have to admit I'm still confused. Is the icecream example fairly unrelated to the introduction and first chapter? They seem to be talking mostly about pure qualia, while the ice-cream example is talking about actions. 

I agree qualia is entirely disconnected from rationality, but I think anything beyond qualia such as actions or intending to take actions is rationality fair game so to speak. I don't see an issue in Bryce assessing the rationality of Ash stopping for ice-cream, it was his communication/social skills that were lacking. 

After reading your post very carefully, I think you are agreeing with the above, I just had the opposite impression upon my first and second reading. Apologies if i'm still misunderstandin, either way I find this topic very interesting so thanks for writing this post. 

I also find the ice-cream example confusing because it's your main example but it doesn't seem like it supports your main points. For example replace Ash with a drug addict and ice cream with meth and Bryce suddenly looks like a hero trying to help his friend from making a big mistake. 

I think the below example still makes Bryce look like how it seems you intended him to look even if it was talking about meth. 

Ash: “Ooh, I want ice cream.”
Bryce: “Seriously?”
Ash: “Well, I'm not actually going to buy some, I just want some”
Bryce: “That’s the problem. You know it’s not good for you. You should want to be eating healthy food”
Ash: “I mean, yeah, but right now I just really feel like ice cream.”
Bryce: “That's stupid”

For anyone under 30, 10 years of polical lying, or 20 years for journalists "lying" is a long time and could be seen as a new reality, especially seeing as it seems to be working out quite well for the liars so it's unlikely to change anytime soon. 

Can you explain more, could a lower income worker without family nearby afford child care and full time house help?

Personally the idea of no free will doesn't negatively impact my mental state, but I can imagine it would for others, so I'm not going to argue that point. You should perhaps consider the positive impacts of the no-free will argument, I think it could lead to alot more understanding and empathy in the world. It's easy for most to see someone making mistakes such as crime, obesity, or just being extremely unpleasant and blame/hate them for "choosing" to be that way. If you believe everything is determined, I find it's pretty easy to re-frame it into someone who was just unlucky enough to be born into the specific situation that led them to this state. If you are yourself successful, instead of being prideful of your superior will/ soul, you can be humble and grateful for all the people and circumstances that allowed you to reach your position/mental state. 

Thanks, that sated my curiosity nicely. Just so you know I'm not trying to pretend I've optimised my child's upbringing, just doing the best I can like most parents I know. I reckon your kids are lucky to have you.

I've got a few questions, mostly curiosity and not trying to be critical at all. 

1. Regarding the purpose of this project, would you say the main motivation is academic or just something you're doing for fun. For example would you still have done it if you had read an extremely trustworthy study saying that starting toddlers reading at an early age had no impact on future academic success.
2. I've done no research on the effect of bribes and child-rearing, is that something you researched before designing the token system?
3. A bit of broader somewhat personal question - You've put a lot of effort into teaching reading to your toddler's, do you also put a similar amount of into other similar abilities. What other skills besides reading have you been focusing on.  Off the top of my head, thinking logically, basics of nutrition, identifying emotions, interpersonel skills, basic maths, calibrating risk. Again, not any kind of attack on you, just thinking about these things myself as I have a young kid. Obviously both parents and toddlers have limited time and energy can only go anki-droid level deep on maybe one topic/subject. 

I'm curious, if you imagine someone who is more conscientious and making better life descisions than you, if they were to look upon you, do you expect them to see you as some kind of cat as well? Similarily, if you were to imagine a less conscientious version of yourself? If you can find empathy here, maybe just extend along these lines to cover more people. 

Also, having a deterministic view of the universe makes it easy for me to find empathy. I just assume that if i was born with their genetics and their experiences I would be making the exact same descisions that they are now. I use that as a connection between myself and them and through that connection I can be kinder to them as I would hope someone would be kinder to me in that situation. If you have sympthy for people born into poverty, it's the same concept. 

This is important context not only for evaluating Greg Burnham's accuracy but also for the Gold Medal headline. If this difficulty chart is accurate (still no idea on the maths), getting 5/6 is not much of a surprise. Even question 2 and 5 seem abnormally easy relative to previous years.